February 2008 Archives

People keep asking, but no, I didn't feel it.  It was only 5.1, about 200 miles away, and at 1 o'clock in the morning.  There's a major train line behind my house, so even if I had felt something, I would have just assumed it was that.

Besides, not to pull rank here, but I lived through at least five major earthquakes while living in Los Angeles, including the one that knocked down the 10 Freeway.  So, I'm not even sure I would have gotten out of bed for a 5.1.  I extend my sympathies to the man who lost his chimney in Lincolnshire, but, well, let's just say there are degrees of chimney loss and this was at the lower end of the scale.

I forgot, a few of you have asked if I'd put up the link when I had things in the Guardian.  And so I had a review in on Saturday of American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman.  Don't know if I agree about the "pleasantly confused" bit, but I didn't write that part.

I've got a few more reviews lined up, including the Collected Stories of Amy Hempel and Breath by the wonderful Australian author Tim Winton. 

And for pleasure, I'm currently reading Robert Coover's classic Pricksongs and Descants, which includes the mindblowing short story "The Babysitter' which had a HUGE effect on me when I first read it.  If you've never read it, you've got a treat in store.

There you go, books lately, as requested.

Well, I've not written in days, but that's because I've been working towards the end of a second draft of the next book (the one that comes AFTER the one that comes out in May; really, it just takes forever to put a book out). 

I won't give anything away, because a book needs extreme protection until it's ready.  I won't even say who gets to read the second draft (but it ain't many).  Suffice to say, I'm nearing the end, will get feedback and editing from people whose opinions I value, and then I'll begin a third draft.  That's how this writing lark goes:  Even when you're finished, you're not close to being finished.

In the meantime, I've squeezed in a showing of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Lyric.  Fascinating production and very well-acted, though I do tend to agree with the critics who wonder why it wasn't made more Africa specific.  Still worth a look, though.

And it's the Oscars early Monday morning.  I got Sky just to watch them.  It's the campest thing I do, possibly the only camp thing I do.  Don't get me started on how much I hate Barbra Streisand...

Yesterday was our ninth anniversary (and second wedding anniversary), so we celebrated with a lovely posh dinner in the reading room at Claridge's.  Teensy portions, but delicious.  It inspires me to offer an iPod EP themed chiastically around girls and boys, without even defining the word "chiastically".

Boy by House of Love (could've picked Erasure's 'Boy', but that doesn't have the chant, "Boy, uh-huh, boy, uh-huh")

Boys and Girls by Bryan Ferry (even though his son's a tosser)

Boys Don't Cry by the Cure (of course)

Girls Don't Cry by Pet Shop Boys (perhaps not even a riposte, but a particularly good b-side)

Girls and Boys by Blur (could've used PSB's live version, but the original's a goody, too)

Girl by Tori Amos (could've used the Beatles, but why not Tori when she was a decent Kate Bush tribute act and before she crawled up her own harpsichord-laden behind)

6 songs, 22 minutes of good music.  Figured out what it means yet?

Two different ones, that is. 

There Will Be Blood is a terrific film.  I'm a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan, having sat through all three hours of Magnolia without a bathroom break at the Barbican and not even laughing when they all burst into song.  I think he's a rare genius, and There Will Be Blood is excellent. 

I'm going against the extremely-tasteful-cinephile stream here, but I don't think it's quite as good as No Country For Old Men.  Movie geeks like to play oneupmanship even more than sci-fi bloggers, so now that everyone really likes No Country, it's far cooler to prefer There Will Be Blood.  And I'd love to, but I gotta say I was more affected by No Country.  Being popular and recognised is by no means a guarantee of quality, but that doesn't mean it's automatically average, either.

And I've now seen the trailer for Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights twice now, and I've got to say the trailer is so poor, it looks like a spoof.  Wong Kar Wai is amazing, world-class.  The trailer for My Blueberry Nights makes him look like Joel Schumacher trying to be arty.  It's that bad.  Must get a re-edit.

Saw The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other at the National last night.  One hour, forty minutes, no interval, and no dialogue, not a word.  For the first few minutes, as random people crossed a stage set of a city square, I thought, "Oh, Christ..." but then you grow intrigued and then engrossed and then suddenly 100 minutes have passed and you haven't been bored once.  Fascinating.

At the other end of the spectrum, I saw Juno on Sunday, which is pretty much all dialogue, but WHAT dialogue.  Talk about a joy to listen to.  Funny and smart and loveable, which is a rare pleasure bordering on extinct at the movies.  Hyper-eloquent but believable, and with a compassionate take on every single character, even the ones who start out prickly.  I could have cried with gratitude.

And after Arrested Development, Superbad and now Juno, Michael Cera is officially the sublimest person on the planet.  Is there a fan club I can join?

This is true:

On last night's BAFTAs, Eva Mendes was presenting the Rising Star Award to the year's most promising newcomer in film.  How this translated into a victory for Shia LeBoeuf, I'll never know, but in her presentation speech, Eva revealed that the award was started in memory of Mary Selway, a much-respected casting director who, it seems, discovered oodles of new talent.

I, however, had the volume turned down and the closed-captioning turned on (these speeches make me cringe, so they're better off silent), and was therefore genuinely impressed to learn that, according to the typist, the Rising Star Award "was founded by Monica Seles."

I've always wondered what she was doing since she retired.

We've had doom.  Time for the iPod EP of do:

Do You Want To? by Franz Ferdinand (whose next album is being done with Xenomania, the producers of Girls Aloud; the mind boggles (in a good way))

Do I Have To? by Pet Shop Boys (the best b-side band in the history of music)

Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? by Culture Club (people have had their memories sucked dry by Karma Chamelon and forget that Culture Club actually wrote decent songs)

Do You Wanna Hold Me? by Bow Wow Wow (it's a great running song, too, especially after the guitar solo when it becomes transcendant)

And end with Do You Realize??? by Flaming Lips (speaking of transcendance, a song about how we're all going to die but it's okay because we've got each other right now)

This breaks the Nick Cave rule of iPod eps, but it's got Flaming Lips and Pet Shop Boys, so that's okay.

Coming soon, the iPod of don't.

My good and excellent friend Patrick Gale got Richard & Judy-ed yesterday.  Despite a general reputation of writers being miserable creatures given to seething resentment at the success of others (viz, the later writings of V S Naipaul, who waits until you're dead then tells the world he never liked you), I couldn't be happier for him.  It's a terrific book (Notes From An Exhibition) and he's a genuinely nice and generous man.  Very mentor-like in a number of ways to me as a newbie in the publishing world.  Buy it; you'd be supporting an excellent writer and a terrific human being.

The more I see Harold Pinter, the less I'm sure about the "human being" part of the equation for him.  His plays are always tart, sharp, beguilingly strange and interesting, but would you want your daughter to date him?  I saw The Homecoming at the Almeida (God, I love the Almeida, always interesting stuff there).  It was, as my friend Gary put it, "extraordinarily weird", but fascinating in the questions of power and gender.  First time a black actress has played Ruth, too, apparently, making it even more interesting.

But she, as is not uncommon in the Pinters I've seen, gets almost no funny lines, whereas the men get loads.  He's married to Antonia Fraser, who's hardly a slouch, so I'm probably way off the beam here, but as a young man, anyway, you get to wondering whether Pinter actually knew the women he dated.  Good play, though.  Wonder what women think of it?

No, not about the stock market (though what did I tell you?  All that panic, and everyone's still as rich as they ever were).  In addition to getting the first hard copies of the new book, I'm also on the cover the new Bookseller Children's Buyer's Guide which is very cool (and which you can see if you click on the link; it's me and a graphic novelisation of Macbeth on the adult one; who knows?).

Just got back from seeing Cloverfield, and no, even though I was warned, I didn't see the splash on the horizon at the end, so I'm just going to have to rent it later on (none of those crappy bootlegs online show anything, and why would I watch a bootleg anyway?  Huh?  I ask you.)

From the ridiculous to the sublime (rather than the other way, which is usual), I'm off to see a Pinter at the Almeida on Tuesday.  It's the Almeida, so the pauses should be even longer than normal.  Oh, I jest, though Michael Attenborough does like to make things take their time.  I'll let you know.